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1984–85: The UK miners' strike led to confrontations between striking miners and police in northern England and south Wales. A widely reported clash at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham on 18 June 1984, with around 5,000 on each side, was dubbed 'The Battle of Orgreave'. Violence flared after police on horse-back charged the miners with truncheons drawn and inflicted serious injuries upon several individuals. In 1991, the South Yorkshire Police were forced to pay out £425,000 to thirty-nine miners who were arrested in the events at the incident.[1] Other less well known, but also bloody, police attacks took place, for example, in Maltby, South Yorkshire.[2]

2010: Policing of the student protests included the controversial technique of kettling. At the Whitehall march on 24 November mounted police's use of horses for crowd control was described by others present as a "charge".[3][4] A journalist at the Parliament Square protest on 9 December characterised the police tactics as "very heavy-handed".[5] Several police officers were injured during the clashes.[6]

1936: the Battle of Cable Street was a major clash between the police, who were attempting to protect a rally by Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and about 20,000 anti-fascist protestors. Mounted police charged at the crowd,[7] and many of the arrested demonstrators reported harsh treatment at the hands of the police. Police were among the 175 people injured in the confrontation.

1979: Blair Peach was fatally assaulted by an officer of the Special Patrol Group (SPG) during an anti-racism demonstration in London. A police investigation into the SPG found that they had a cache of unauthorised weapons.[9] The Metropolitan Police reached an out-of-court settlement with Peach's family in 1989.[10] The police eventually published their internal report in 2010, concluding that Peach had probably been killed by an officer, but officers within that unit had refused to identify the culprit.[11]

1985: the so called Battle of the Beanfield occurred in Wiltshire when police attempted to stop a convoy of New Age travellers from reaching Stonehenge. After a stand-off, police attacked both vehicles and people, smashing windows and beating travellers on the head with truncheons. A court judgement six years later found the police guilty of wrongful arrest, assault and criminal damage.[12]

1994: Richard O'Brien died in Metropolitan Police custody. He was arrested while drunk, and held face down in a police van. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing, but three officers charged with manslaughter were acquitted.[13]

1998: Christopher Alder died at the Queen's Gardens police station from Asphyxiation. He was arrested for breach of the peace at Hull Royal Infirmary. Footage of Christopher, lying handcuffed and half-naked on the floor of a police cell, surrounded by five officers making monkey noises is available online. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing, but the five officers charged with manslaughter were acquitted.[14]

1999: Harry Stanley was shot dead by Metropolitan Police, thinking he was armed, although he was found to be carrying only a table leg. The coroner controversially returned an open verdict. The Crown Prosecution Service accepted the police's assertion that they were acting in self-defence.[15]

1997: mass protests led to fierce riots and gun battles in nationalist districts of Northern Ireland. In the last spell of widespread violence before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, the RUC and British Army were forced to withdraw entirely from some nationalist areas of Belfast. It was sparked by official permission for an Orange Order march in Portadown, and the RUC's aggressive removal of nationalist protesters who had been blocking the march (the Drumcree conflict).

The Drumcree conflict is an ongoing dispute over a yearly parade in Portadown. Inter-communal violence has repeatedly occurred since 1873. Years in which brutality on the part of the RUC has been recorded include:

1985: police forcefully removed protesters and allowed the march to continue;[21] at least one man was beaten unconscious.[20]

1986: the RUC banned a march, but rioting flamed between residents and the RUC; locals felt that RUC officers had "mutinied" and refused to enforce the ban.[20]

1996: After some years of relative calm, rioting returned as police violently removed protestors from Garvaghy Road, often after beating them. Nationalist leaders stated that their people had lost all faith in the impartiality of the RUC.[22]